A/N: Merry Christmas everyone.

"-. 278 AC .-"

Upon finishing his short summary of the ages' worth of history he had recently stolen from the closest thing the world had to a hell, Maester Luwin had the dubious honour of seeing Lord Rickard Stark completely lose his temper. Or, well, perhaps not quite completely since he didn't go and do violence, but that was the only good thing he could say about it. Luwin was dismayed to see that all the effort he put into giving context to the more current issues he still had to share went and backfired. He was even more guiltily relieved that Lord Brandon took all of the anger instead. After a while, though, there was only room left for the horrified fascination at seeing the Lords Stark descend into a literal shouting match that only ended when Lord Rickard threw his arms in the air, stormed off, barked at the stunned ferryman to carry him to the other side of the lake, mounted his horse and rode off to parts unknown.

Luwin watched him go, mouth agape. Lord Rickard. And his son. At odds. Rickard Stark and Brandon Stark. Rickard Stark. Angry. At Brandon Stark. Luwin didn't think he could even do that.

"Well, that could have gone better," Lord Brandon stared in the man's wake. "In hindsight, opening up with 'actually Dad, Artys Arryn wasn't such a bad guy' might not have been my brightest idea."

"I… That…" Luwin stammered. "Lord Brandon, I swear I didn't meant to-"

"It's alright, Luwin, you did nothing wrong."

Luwin already knew that, but the reassurance still felt like the Gods' own grace.

Luwin tried to collect himself. Told himself he should be neither surprised nor insulted. Somehow, it worked. In fact, it worked so well that he began feeling fairly amazed he wasn't being battered with a stream of disbelief. He'd just told the Lord of House Stark that Garth Greenhand had caused the Long Night. Then went off to sire the Valyrians instead of staying behind to fix his mess to the bitter end. Then was involved in something in the Far East that made the Long Night worse. Which drove his children to rampant kinslaying so destructive that it was probably the origin of the 'no man is as accursed as the kinslayer' tenet. And either Brandon of the Bloody Blade or Bran the Builder himself had married an Other. Which implied truly horrendous things about the office of the King of Winter and how it originated. It was a miracle Lord Rickard hadn't tossed him in the dungeons for slander against his ancestors.

Knowing all of that was different from feeling it though. Very.

"Marwyn," Brandon called.

"Your order."

"Shadow him. Unseen. Just in case. Nothing should happen in the heart of the North, but that didn't stop the Great Keep from nearly going down in flames. Use as much power as it takes, I'll replenish whatever you waste."

"It will be no waste at all." Marwyn walked over to the tree farthest from the Weirwood, sat down against it and seemingly fell asleep. With his second sight, though, Luwin saw clearly when the man stepped out of his body and crossed to the other side of the lake in a single stride, vanishing down the far off forest path.

"Well, I definitely got what I asked for, that's for sure." Brandon Stark shook his head when Marwyn was out of sight. The lord seemed deathly spent, but laboured to master himself. It was slow work that took visible effort compared to before, when he wasn't dealing with world-shattering revelations on top of soul-scarring spiritual-trauma, but he managed.

"Lord Brandon…"

"I'm here, Luwin. I'm still here."

"… I don't know what to say."

"Well, that's good because I know what I want you to say. That last, very important thing you were building up to at the end there, those unintended consequences of my actions that were actually good ones. Tell me about that, Luwin, did you mean good consequences in general, or just good for me?"

Gods be good. Trust Brandon Stark to jump headlong into even more trauma. And not just for himself. Luwin was acutely aware of Martyn Cassel watching everything from the background.

"Luwin," Brandon said when Luwin couldn't find his voice, tone firmer than he had managed since his soul surgery. "The whole mess with Rodrik. Tell me what you know."

"… The Gods called on him to serve, and he answered." Luwin finally managed.

"You mean the Starks in the Greendream."

"I suppose." Brandon Stark was strangely reluctant to give the Gods their due. He looked at beings that transcended death and influenced the fate of man throughout the ages but somehow didn't consider that worthy of the name. So what if the joined spirits of past sorcerer kings started out as men? Luwin wondered what made a God in his eyes, but not enough to ask. "Your father's command was to protect you, but the Gods' command was to help you. Not at first, they contacted him only when you began showing signs that you perhaps might actually know enough to heal yourself. They sent him dreams, visions and impressions, feelings. Conveyed how he should serve your aims. They didn't think you would succeed, but Rodrik did, even if they were sure you wouldn't, not without help. Oddly, he didn't trust the signs for a long time precisely because they didn't convey the same faith in you that he felt. Or hope. When the time came, though, and he enabled your… escapade, he had already decided to accept the punishment that would ensue for his insubordination. He didn't keep silent out of any Gods-given directive. He did it because he knew it would put him in the position to confront them, and because the truth would have finally made fact out of all the rumors that you were a lackwit."

"But I was a lackwit."

"To him it was slander he wouldn't allow."

"Of course he'd believe that," Lord Brandon muttered. "The mentor occupational hazard is the worst trope ever and I hate it from the blackest depths of my bleeding heart."

"… I have no idea what you just said."

"Some ramblings about how this world functions that I'm still putting together and are hopefully just me experiencing temporary insanity again, it's not important right now. Back to Rodrik's decision to defend my honour on pain of execution. Actually, what did the Ancestors have to say about it?"

"Nothing. They were completely silent on the matter."

Brandon Stark rubbed his forehead. "The only piece mightier than a willing sacrifice is a heroic one."

"I suspect so," Luwin agreed. The price of magic could be steep, more so in these times when hell itself gobbled up all but the loosest scraps of power the world would normally be awash in. But there was always power in concerted action. The more someone acted on a goal from their own convictions, the stronger the manifest will. When Rodrik died with full intent to confront the Gods for their demands, he retained all of himself precisely because his actions leading up to it were his own from start to end.

There was all of himself present and aware to take a new mission.

Lord Brandon sighed, then paused and gave Luwin a scrutinizing stare. "This isn't anything you would have found in the red, is it?"

"No. These were all impressions Rodrik himself conveyed in what little time we had when, well…"

"What happened, Luwin? Him dying wasn't the end of it, was it?"

"No. He lingered in the Godswood, where the Gods – where your Ancient kin sustained him with one foot in the grave, a last safeguard in case… well, in case of exactly what happened."

"Tell me."

"I… it's just…" Luwin looked over to where Martyn Cassel stood frozen.

Brandon looked as well. "Martyn? Your call."

The man looked almost ready to say no. Almost. "… I want to know."

Brandon Stark looked at Luwin and waited.

"You burned," Luwin managed to say before he could lose his nerve. "The Grand Design has grown since the Doom. It blankets half the known world like a shroud of shadowed flame unseen beneath the sky, eating all but the smallest scrap of vigor the world should be awash in, even its own light. When you were high off your victory against the entity haunting you, you soared so high that you smacked right into the flame and you burned."

"Well," Brandon said. "Shit."

"You would have been devoured and consumed. It was everything your Departed feared and expected."

"And Rodrik swooped up to save me."

"He rose." In wrath and might and glory. "He tried to catch you before you flew too high." But children always flew the swiftest. "When that failed, he pulled you out and sliced off the part of you that was burning. His challenge was not suffered quietly. There was a great quake in the world unseen. He stood to meet it and was swallowed by shadow and flame in your stead. You lived. The part cut off your soul took with it all the fire, all the pain, all the memories you lack of what transpired, and I suspect much more." No doubt it was the reason why Brandon Stark never knew when Benjen was unconsciously snooping all over the dream realm, even though Marwyn always noticed him whenever he was there. If there were spiritual equivalents to smell or hearing, Brandon Stark had lost at least one of the two. "It fell far away, somewhere beyond the Wall where it finally passed beyond the sight of even the fire. I don't know how it came to inhabit the wolf that you know of, if that's truly the case, but I know it lived. Lives still." Because a fourth party had emerged from quiet vigil to snuff the fire out before it could completely annihilate it. The same way it had put out the fire before Luwin himself was completely annihilated.

"You tried to get my brother out."

Luwin shook himself and turned to Martyn.

"You got him out. That's why you burned."

The memory of his torment wracked Luwin's recollection all at once. The moment of silence when he stood still unburned in hell's fire, watching the man writhe in agonising torment. Briefly weighing action against continuing his undiscovered delving of the secrets of ages. Plunging into him. Out of the flame. The sudden knowledge of becoming known. The dead dragons' all-rending, hungry wrath. Pain. Gods, the pain was… Luwin remembered screaming, pain ripping into him like molten iron as fire took him both in Winterfell and the Dream. He remembered regretting, sure that he would die. Regretted his heroism even when he was successful and they broke free, because they had escaped from hell but the fire still ate at them.

Then Rodrik came to sudden awareness, grabbed Luwin by the scruff and guided their fall from heaven northward, until they too fell beyond the Wall where Winter ruled and all other powers were suppressed. They crashed to the earth and through it, into and through a great hill with an ancient ringwall atop and the most perilous slopes. Fell though the earth into darkness that Luwin still didn't know if it was because of the lightlessness of the underworld or because he'd gone blind already. He remembered the moment the pain disappeared though, the heat eating him inside out replaced by cold, icy fingers gripping his face and a palm even cooler than ice laid over his eyes, the cold so deep and so sharp that it was just a different kind of burning.

After that he'd been carried somewhere, somehow, insensate. Then it was as if he'd been thrown head-first into an ice-cold lake before he finally came to awareness in the medical ward. That was twice, now, that he'd been borne through the Greendream without knowing it until it was all over.

Now he was on an island in the middle of a lake near a village without name, staring into space and shivering in the warm air as two other men watched and waited. "… I couldn't leave him there." Luwin had hoped to find some better words, but the time had come and he hadn't. "So I didn't." And it would have killed him, if not for whatever or whoever that had been. He didn't know what to suspect. When he tried to brave an assumption, Luwin always shied away from the thought. Any thought. Whenever he dwelt on the question, he imagined an ancient, hoarfrost-encrusted face looking back at him through his own memory.

"You didn't leave him," Martyn said as if he didn't know what he was speaking to. "You… You mean you did it. You did it? You saved him?"

It was then, belatedly, that Luwin realized how absurd the entire situation was. "… This is a lot to be taking at just my word, I hope you realise."

Ser Martyn Cassel stared at him blankly, came forward, walked past him, drew his sword and drove it into the ground as he bent the knee at Brandon Stark's feet. "My Lord, I beg to be released from service."

What?

"Denied."

Oh dear.

"-. 278 AC .-"

The first night back in Winterfell, Luwin couldn't sleep. The second night he tried but couldn't manage it either. On the third day, though, Benjen Stark led Lyanna Stark on a wild chase up and down the entire Library Tower, knocking over tables and baskets and stacks of books such that Luwin had to spend the entire day reshelving and generally cleaning up after them. Or, well, ordering the servants around to do it seeing as they at least had eyes to see by. He was so tired by the time he reached his bed that he couldn't have stayed awake if he wanted to.

When the dream came, it was beyond his control. He'd not gotten used to asserting himself without conscious self-suggestion leading up to slumber. The agony felt as terrible as it did in reality. He did become self-aware half-way through, which banished the torment to the phantoms of his mind where they belonged, but that only let him contemplate the sight of Rodrik Cassel as he'd truly looked in that moment before Luwin was rendered unable to see him entirely. The dream reprised itself, again and again, and Luwin knew he was trapped but couldn't look away long enough to muster the will to escape.

That was when the deck of a ship emerged from under him and he was lifted up and up, all the way out of the ocean of memory with nary a jet or ripple.

He collapsed to his knees on the deck and was caught by Marwyn's strong arms. He huddled into the man's side, burying his face in the man's beard, shutting his eyes so the sight of it wouldn't be tainted by the memory of dragon fire. The sight of Cassel wouldn't leave him though, as if it was seared into his eyelids. Luwin knew the man had been in the prime of his life when he died, but that was nothing like the man he'd found in the fire. Tall he was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as milk. His armor seemed to change color as he thrashed. Here it was brass and red with reflected flame, there it was black as shadow, there again it was white as new-fallen snow when they plummeted, everywhere dappled with the deep scattered shades of fire and leaves all the way from the hell in heaven to the grey-green of the trees below, then the black of the underworld. The patterns ran like hearthlight on crystal with every move he made.

"You didn't mention this, Luwin," Brandon Stark called from the prow of the ship where he stood on the heads of wood walkers slaughtered in olden days. "But I can see why."

Luwin just sunk deeper in Marwyn's embrace, looking for what reassurance he could with the captain of the ship bearing him hence. He didn't need to ask or see what Lord Brandon was looking at overboard, what was surely reflected in that surface of the sea in whose shape Marwyn always beat the astral plane where he passed through, smooth and clear as glass. Luwin was irritated with the Cassels' rashness, but he was thankful for it too. It was the only reason Martyn didn't think to ask how his brother had even lasted long enough to be found, when the souls of the Dragonlords themselves had been extinguished by their own creation. Luwin had no idea what he'd say, how he'd describe the sight of the man, dressed like a pale shadow whose veins seeped through his skin, whose wounds and tears bled the black blood of demons.

"Unbelievable," Brandon Stark balked, aghast. "My own ancestors. They turned my knight into an oil lamp!"

Luwin burst into laughter and didn't stop all the way to morning. He woke up to find he'd been laughing aloud in his sleep. When he rose from bed, he felt light and refreshed.

Trust Brandon Stark to lift his spirits without even trying.

It was true, though, wasn't it? A snuff burned itself out in moments, but put it in oil and it could last for weeks. And if that meant the Ancients in the Greendream could extinguish a bit of the Bloodstone's taint in the doing…

"Evil turned to the service of good," Luwin murmured as he began the laborious process of finding his clothes without eyes to see.

Serwyn of the Mirror Shield was said to have slain a dragon, Luwin suddenly recalled out of nowhere. But he was also said to be haunted by all the ghosts of all the knights he killed. That sounded an awful lot like the complete inversion of Brandon Stark. But it also sounded like Rodrik. And it also sounded a lot like a white walker, didn't it? A white walker and his army of wights.

There was a knock on the door. Luwin tried not to feel too embarrassed when he needed the maid to answer instead of bumping into everything on the way over. He didn't need to ask who it was though. Martyn Cassel felt even more grim than back on the island, if that was possible. But at least this way Luwin had a strong arm to steer by on the way to his first and most important appointment of the day.

He allowed himself to be led out of the Maester's Turret, across the bridge to the Great Keep, then down corridors and stairs into the deepest bowels of the keep short of the dungeons. He thought about everything that had led him where he was, remembering. His life was changing. But then, in the North, life was always changing, and you could track most of it to the acts of a single man. Not too easily anymore, though, thankfully. Much had been done to obfuscate the truth.

When Luwin was still freshly invested in his post, Brandon Stark used to spend half his days out of Winterfell. Later, his time away from home decreased noticeably after he became comfortable delegating to his Court of Heirs. His mother was pleased when her firstborn spent more time at home than her husband could keep to himself, Benjen was delighted, Lyanna was passive-aggressive, and the small handful of highborn men that Brandon Stark didn't work like minions were alternatively relieved and abashed. Relieved because they wouldn't be run ragged like their fellows. Abashed because of the oft bewildering reasons why they were not invested with the same authority. Luwin himself had never figured out why Brandon Stark had looked at Jorah Mormont, a man completely lacking in intellectual pursuits and whose manner had literally seen him mistaken for an Andal knight, and declared that he'd have to learn copper counting well enough to satisfy Wyman Manderly.

To no one's surprise, it had still been a work in progress when the Karstark wedding fiasco gave Jorah the public excuse he needed to bravely run back home. Luwin actually sympathised with the man, he didn't care what visions Lord Brandon had, 'you'll need it when you get married' was not an acceptable argument. You'd think the lad lived in a world where it wasn't the wife that handled the coin counting. It might have led to resentment if that all didn't also mean that Jorah Mormont got to train with Mullin and Lord Stark more than any of his peers. Few things could offset embarrassment like making the ones in front of whom you were embarrassed burn with sheer envy. There was grumbling over Mormont's 'privilege' from the other men of course, but it quite firmly ended when the Young Lord extended the 'offer' of 'learning this most critical aspect of logistics' to the two who complained the loudest. Willam Dustin and Galbart Glover still swore up, down and sideways they would never forgive him, but the alacrity with which they adopted the railway project said otherwise.

Mormont had done nothing since his return home but prepare for his trip to the Hightower wedding tourney. Luwin wished him luck. Not even Brandon Stark would have a leg to stand on if Jorah made good on the boast in his last letter and came back with a wife drawn from that fabled house of merchant kings.

Now that all the men had returned home to make good on all they had learned, though, the Young Lord had begun spending more time out in Wintertown again. Today would normally have had him teaching smallfolk out in the city. Normally. Even if he hadn't been put on sick leave by his father during his convalescence, the deluge of revelations Luwin had dropped would likely have disrupted his routine on its own. It had certainly set Lord Stark himself into a mood so foul that Luwin wouldn't be surprised if rocks cracked under his frosty glare. Luwin thankfully didn't have to be close enough to feel it. Lord Stark had quite categorically told him to stay out of his sight.

"Last staircase," Martyn Cassel murmured, tapping Luwin's fingers where his hand was gripping his arm. "Spiral this time, no railing. Hand on the wall."

"Alright."

Having a sworn sword was looking like it would take surprisingly little time to get used to, though Luwin was still hesitant to essentially poach his liege lord's secret-keeper. He'd honestly expected Martyn to denounce him as a madman or a liar, or both. Instead, the man had practically begged to be released from service so he could swear his sword to Luwin instead. Brandon Stark had flatly refused to entertain such an abrupt emotional decision and told him to ask him again in three days. Which was today.

"We're here," Martyn said. They'd finished their descent and walked the rest of the way to their destination. Luwin decided that Brandon Stark must have gotten distracted on his walks a lot, at least in the beginning, because Martyn was uncannily adept at herding the blind. Luwin barely had to use his second sight to get around. In fact, the difference was such that he'd actually started to build his energy up.

"Do you need a moment?"

"… Not out of the question," Luwin replied when he decided the man probably wanted one himself.

"Right."

They stood there quietly. It quickly became awkward. Luwin nodded to Martyn to go ahead.

The man pounded hard on the door. "He might be doing something really loud in there."

Luwin heard nothing from within, but that was no guarantee of anything these days.

The door opened. "I thought you might seek me out. Come in then."

Once inside, Luwin felt a familiar warmth inside his skull and dared to light the candle. It didn't drain him at all. He relaxed and opened his third eye, turning it down upon the physical world. "Thank you."

"Soon you won't need the help, I think." Brandon Stark scrutinized him. "But we should have a new pair of eyes for you anyway. Transplanting them might take some doing though."

"If you find some I can heal them in place myself."

"I believe you."

Luwin watched as the Young Lord went off to pick up a wooden board from the nearby tabletop where there were various tools lying about, as well as a pair of lodestones and a spool of wire. Oddly, the thread wasn't made of any sort of fiber. The sheen of copper glinted cleanly in the sunlight that shone into that underground space thanks to a chain of mirrors not unlike the one that Luwin had been gifted.

"I assume you stand by your decision," Lord Brandon asked Martyn.

"I do, My Lord."

"Then I release you from my service. I'll have Mullin and Annard both mark you down with all honors."

"Thank you, Lord." Martwyn dithered. "I am sorry, My Lord, you were and are a worthy master, it's just…"

"You owe Luwin more and you swore by a lie."

"That's not…" Martyn trailed off. The fact was, in the end, that he had made his pledge based on a lie and the only one to blame for that was his brother Rodrik.

And the Gods.

Brandon Stark nodded understandingly. "I assume you've already negotiated terms?"

"Aye." "We have."

"Then would you like me to stand witness?"

Martyn almost sagged in relief. "If it pleases you, Lord."

"It doesn't. I rather enjoyed having you there for me." Honesty really could cut the deepest. "But I don't hold it against you. Say your oaths."

Martyn Cassel drew his sword and took a knee before Luwin. "I will to my lord to be true and faithful, and love all which you love, and shun all which you shun, and never, by will nor by force, by word nor by work, do ought of what is loathful to you."

Luwin resisted the impulse to clear his throat. "And I shall hold to you as you shall deserve it, and will perform everything as it was in our agreement when you submitted yourself to me and chose my will."

"So witnessed," the Lord intoned.

Luwin thought there should be some sort of ripple in the unseen world to acknowledge the new reality, but nothing happened.

Martyn stood up and sheathed his blade. He didn't stand any differently, but he did stand and wait on him.

Luwin looked around. "Is there a chair he could…?"

Brandon Stark gestured to a foldable near the wall.

"Appreciated but unnecessary," Martyn said. "I'll be right outside."

"Not yet you're not." Brandon walked up and embraced the man.

Martyn Cassel froze. Stayed that way. Then tentatively returned the hug when his former charge didn't immediately pull away. Brandon Stark did that, Luwin had found. Just walked up to people he liked and hugged them and didn't let go until he was good and ready. Which never came until the other person was good and ready to keep going forever. He was taller than Cassel now, Luwin noticed.

Brandon pulled away and pat the other man on the shoulders. "You're a good man, Martyn. I'm glad to know you. Be well."

Luwin's heart grew light. Bran Stark was a good man.

Martyn stumbled over his words. "I-I will."

The Young Lord nodded and dismissed the knight.

Luwin watched the man exit. He thought that his new sworn sword suddenly didn't look all that awkward or conflicted at all.

The door opened and closed.

Brandon Stark went to his worktable and began gathering items while Luwin stood awkwardly.

The Maester cleared his throat and shuffled over to the chair. "May I sit here?"

"Go ahead." The voice was amused. "Hiding from hurricane Rickard?"

Luwin sat with a blush. "Well, he's not been as loud as all that…"

"Not since our shouting match back on the island, you mean." How was he not upset? "I hope you can forgive him. When he told you to shut up and get out of his sight he didn't mean it as a slight against you. He just needs time alone to come to terms."

"I know. If it was just that I'd huddle in my turret and wait him out, it's just... I came here to apologize."

"Eh?"

"I never imagined he would turn his anger on you. If I'd used a different approach to my delivery-"

"Denied."

Luwin's mouth clamped shut.

"You're doing like Martyn, but backwards. He went all 'I just heard news that upended my entire lifetime of beliefs, now let me throw my livelihood away without a moment's thought.' Now you're going all 'I've had three days to overthink myself into a fretful mess, now let me apologise for things that are neither bad nor my fault because fuck common sense, I have feelings.'"

Luwin sat back in his chair, taken aback. "… You have inherited every last bit of your father's harsh candor."

"So I've learned. As did he, though it might take him a week or three for all the umbrage to dissipate and allow his pride in me some time in the sun again."

The next while was wordless, but not silent. Brandon took the wooden board and cut a section out of it with a small hand saw, measuring it with a ruler to about eight centimetres wide and just over thirty in length. Next he marked and cut the piece into even smaller sections, two squares, an almost square, and two thinner rectangles. Using a hammer and nails, the Young Lord then beat the pieces into a four-sided frame. When he was finished, he used a hand-drill to bore holes through the bigger sides, after which he inserted a long iron nail straight through. When he swiped the ends of the frame, it spun freely on its new axis.

Hollow taps on glass. Luwin looked up to see a familiar white raven pecking at the small window up near the ceiling through which the mirrors conveyed sunlight into the room.

Brandon used a long, hooked pole to unlatch and open the window and held out an arm for the raven to land on. "Our first father-son spat left me an anxious mess." Brandon told the bird perched on his wrist. "But since it turns out that anxiety pulls you out of depression like nothing else, I forgive you."

The raven croaked conflictedly.

"That said, I'm not up for working under pressure. You can either be here in person, or not at all. You had a lot to shout while I stood and listened. Now I will talk and you will listen. Or not." He tossed the bird back towards the window and the raven flew out and away.

Brandon turned his attention to the pair of lodestones, cut to perfect rectangles whose length just barely fell short of the frame's width. Brandon glued them to the shaft and stood back to allow the glue to dry. It took a while, during which Luwin's eyes roamed over the rest of the room. He spotted prior attempts at… whatever this was, discarded on tables, shelves and in bins.

Master Marwyn quietly entered the room around that point, carrying a tray of cups and fruit in one hand, a large kettle of something steaming in the other hand, and an ale cask under his arm. The Mage put the tray and cask on a table near the wall, then placed the kettle on the stove and fed the fire. After that, he brought the bowl of fruit and set it on the table just within Brandon's reach before backing away.

The Young Lord absentmindedly took and bit on a dried plum but otherwise showed no acknowledgment to any of it.

The quiet was disturbed when the door opened yet again, and Luwin saw Lord Rickard himself enter the chamber, equipped for the dark side of formal events with his sable cloak over his shoulders and Ice in his hands. He was dressed for an execution. Must have diverted from his course just to come there. Not a very auspicious sign. Or the most auspicious of all, depending on your view. Luwin froze in unwanted dread at the sight and internally castigated himself for his reaction, but it was too late. Lord Stark had caught it.

The man didn't say anything though, just looked at his son wordlessly, not looking it but feeling just as conflicted as he'd sounded through the raven's mouth.

"Come in, Dad." Brandon Stark said with barely a glance in the man's direction, taking a seat next to his table to wait for the glue to finish drying. Sitting with his eyes closed in that way of his when he looked inward, for whatever fell knowledge wasn't immediately on hand for whatever reason. It was an increasingly rare sight these days, or maybe Luwin just wasn't there for most of them.

Lord Stark visibly bit back his first two reactions and moved to sit on the bench against the wall farthest from his son, watching him with the hilt of Ice clasped in both hands in front of him. After a while, the man unsheathed the blade and began quietly polishing it with a cloth. Luwin didn't know what he was supposed to do, in the end settling on propriety. He traipsed over to stand next to the man. "My Lord," he called softly.

"I did wonder, you know," Lord Stark murmured, not looking up from his sword. "Why the Valyrians didn't take greater exception during the War across the Water, considering how thin the veneer already was mid-way through." His voice was grim, but as steady as the hand that guided the cloth across the steel. "A war doesn't last for a thousand years because of the same old point of contention that ceased being worth pursuing within the first decade. The Three Sisters were, however, a good pretext to maintain heavy naval presence in the Narrow Sea. At first it was mainly to destroy the ships of any further Andal migration and launch counter-raids, but only mainly. They were never the only sea raiders we had to deal with. They weren't the only ones who captured the Wolf's Den so many times. We weren't the only ones being raided either, and the slavers of Valyria and its daughters – or their merchant fleets, and warships during their wars – didn't shy away from putting up Southron, Andal or even Northern flags to slip past the odd dromond, when they didn't ambush flotillas outright. There were, in fact, occasions that will never be publically acknowledged by either party, when the Winter King and Arryn King colluded to continue the war as pretense for that very reason."

They did? Luwin wondered if Jon Arryn knew about this.

"What's strange is that none of the successful incursions were ever followed through. I personally doubt the Valyrians built their entire foreign policy purely on some prophecy about Lannister gold causing the downfall of the Freehold. They'd have been far less dismissive of Aenar Targaryen if they put so much stock in supposed prescience. And yet the closest anything Valyrian got to invading Westeros was when a King-Beyond-the-Wall chose a Valyrian name for whatever reason. It's enough to make a man wonder if dragons really were behind what happened at Hardhome. You did mention that, yes? That rival that would have become a problem, do you know his name?"

"Caeleb Belaerys."

"Caeleb. Belaerys. Bael. Bael the Bard. I'm not sure if I should rejoice or begrudge the wildlings's choice of lies."

"If they are lies," Brandon said without opening his eyes, proving that he'd seen and heard everything without looking or listening, as usual. "Bard's truth is still truth, after a fashion."

Lord Rickard visibly bit down on what he wanted to say. "I'll assume that wasn't meant to goad," he ground out instead.

"The Tragedy of The Triarch by Bernardo Dei."

That threw everyone.

After a while, it became clear that Luwin was the only one who had any idea. "The Braavosi mummery? What does that have to do with anything?"

"It has everything to do with it because you were dreaming about it last night. You were dreaming of it very loudly."

"Oh." With all the… excitement arising from his recurring memory, he'd forgotten everything he'd dreamed leading up to it.

"Explain," Lord Stark demanded.

Lord Brandon took that off Luwin's hands, thankfully. "The play is neither a tragedy nor even about a person, let alone a potentate placed so high. It's a satire of the tragically ironic fate of a book."

"The only book called The Triarch that I know of is Tywin Lannister's personal scripture," Lord Stark said flatly. "He quoted from it constantly during the Ninepenny war. It's about as far from satire as the sun is from the Earth."

"Only because it's out of context."

"What context?"

"The Triarch's hero is Caeleb Belaerys."

Something like the dawn of understanding began to show on Lord Rickard's face. He looked at Luwin, demand clear in his eyes.

"Caeleb Belearys was an apostate and suspected kinslayer that nonetheless managed to use the chaos of the last Rhoynish War to usurp power from his trueborn kin, even becoming Triarch of Volantis. He was later responsible for the disaster at Hardhome, though it was deliberately kept out of written records. But I think Lord Brandon is trying to make a different point altogether."

"We might get back to that later, since Hardhome is looking more and more like another of those things that will come home to roost in our lifetime." Lord Brandon stood from his seat, held out a hand and accepted a charcoal stick from Marwyn, then went to the easel opposite from where Luwin stood, took off the black covering and began adding something or other to the paper already nearly full. "I expect I'll be expected to stop the wailing caves from wailing, or something like that."

Well, now Luwin had an all new reason not to sleep like a normal person. He decided to continue with lord Rickard's explanation. "Bernardo Dei wrote the book just when Caeleb Belaerys, a man he held in absolute contempt, was beginning to see the foundation of his power starting to collapse under him – his father, the High priest of R'hllor, had died, taking with it the protection Caeleb had enjoyed against the clergy he'd publically spurned and humiliated by resigning from his position as Master of the Fiery Hand and taking most of the Red Temple's slave soldiers as his personal troops during the Last Rhoynish War. In time he would have been overthrown and consigned to a footnote in history, but Bernardo believed his book might expedite the process. Unfortunately, Dei was betrayed by the second of three Triarchs, his ostensible patron that commissioned the book to begin with. The man slandered Dei as a fanatic-"

"For the high crime of beating the new High Priest in a public debate," Lord Brandon threw in from where he was drawing circles and lines. "Apparently, reading up on the other guy's choice of literature so you can quote from it and destroy all his points in one fell swoop makes you a religious zealot."

"Dei's patron had sold him out in a move to secure leverage over Belaerys, so he acted as a proxy for the latter to slander Dei, projecting on him all the latter's foibles. Then Caeleb swooped in as an ostensibly impartial authority figure and ran Dei out of the city before The Triarch could be released to the public, making him a scapegoat and himself out as a righteous lawkeeper. I could and may write a whole book on the matter, but I think your son is more interested in what happened in the time leading up to the Doom and after."

"That being slander," Brandon said with a backwards wave for Luwin to keep going.

"Dei found many willing ears in the other colonies, but Belaerys' enmity found fertile ground with his peers, and his own heirs as well. They, unlike their usurper father, had the favour of the Valyrian court as well, who'd already banned Dei from Valyria proper."

"Which makes sense," Marwyn said this time. "As it is their court that The Triarch describes best."

"Dei eventually vanished to Braavos, though this would only be discovered during the Unmasking of Uthero, when The Tragedy of the Triarch was first acted out. But House Belaerys held a grudge like the worst of them, and when Dei vanished without them getting proper vengeance, they decided that just un-personing him wasn't enough even if they did beggar themselves in pursuit of it. So they did something different."

"Totally different," Lord Brandon harrumphed.

Well, he wasn't wrong. "They began speaking well of the book, and paid scholars and philosophers to gush over it as if it were a genuine work of political philosophy, rather than a condemnation of all the advice it prescribed, and which would have ruined Belaerys if he'd ever read and put it into practice. Eventually, everyone came to believe it was meant to be genuine, and the Century of Blood destroyed most proof to the contrary until only the Braavosi still knew the truth. And even they steadily stopped caring until the only thing left to speak to the truth of things was the play I mentioned before. Now everyone hails The Triarch as the premier instruction guide for lords and princes, and Bernardo Dei is considered the father of cutthroat politics despite it being completely opposite his personal philosophies, all while all his other work is practically forgotten."

"The most enlightened and freedom-loving man of his time is now the man who persuaded the whole world that the most egoistic end justifies the most immoral means." Brandon Stark summarised. "Just like the Valyrians in Luwin's epic come across as self-deluded maniacs because the later generations tainted their own history with their egoism all the way to the afterlife. Or how the only surviving parts of our oral tradition are the ones that speak well or neutrally about certain figures of legend. I'm really hoping Medrick will track down the other side of the truth sometime soon." Brandon passed Marwyn his charcoal stick and accepted instead a pen and began to write. "Just like Artys Arrin is being perceived as an irredeemable villain by certain parties, instead of a good but misled man who didn't have the benefit of a transmigrating son with more nerve than sense to yank him out of his despair. Instead he inherited the Long Night and whatever ruined his family in the Shadow."

Lord Stark looked positively furious, but unlike the island, he bit down on whatever outburst was mounting until his deep and long in-breaths were all the sign left of his inner rage. "You've made your point."

"Have I? Did I make it well enough that I don't need to worry about what Ryben's report on Dorne might be used for?"

Lord Rickard's face closed completely. "… That was a low blow."

The mood turned thick and cloying, like oil left under the sun for too long. Luwin couldn't stand it for long. "Ryben's report?"

"The faction report on Dorne. It ended up going a tad bit farther back than most of the others, and it's got some very troublesome circumstantial evidence that could turn things sour really fast. Ask Ryben about it when you have the chance, it-"

Lod Rickard pointedly cleared his throat.

"Right. We want you to go at it with a fresh mind because we value your unbiased opinion. Never mind."

Luwin would have been flattered if he hadn't just felt as if he was handed the worst case of blue b-

"Garth Greenhand was a good guy too, incidentally."

Luwin blinked, jarred by the sudden shift back on topic, but just as thankful even if he did have certain misgivings about this as well. "I suppose it's not impossible the Valyrian choice of truth might have already succumbed to their own revisionism by the time of the Grand Design, but his role as instigator of the calamity is beyond question."

"I'm not denying that. But once again we are missing context. Hundreds, possibly thousands of years of it."

"Tell it, then," Lord Stark ground, tossing his cleaning rag aside and driving Ice back into its sheath. "That's why you called me here, isn't it?"

"Not yet. Not here. Luwin," Brandon called instead of answering. "The summary of your whole Prometheus episode made for quite the epic," He talked as if Luwin was supposed to know what promithias meant. "But I'm thinking it left out a lot more than it seemed on first telling."

"Several books' worth," Luwin admitted. "I only stopped when, well…"

"When the knowledge trove you'd been trailblazing landed you right where Rodrick Cassel was burning in hell." Brandon Stark stepped back from the easel, and Luwin managed to catch the barest glimpse of the contents.

EMPEROR AZOR AHAI, First(?) of his Name, the Bloodstone Emperor + his first(?) wife Nyssa Nyssa (CoTF?) = their son Garth (Greenhand), firstborn, heir to the Great Empire of the Dawn, presumed dead at some point (interbreeding still worked or fleshcrafting?)

+ his second wife, Valyria (?) the Amethyst Empress, Last Fisher Queen (Huzor Amai's sister?) = at least two more children: Galon, the Grey King (eventually), heir to the Great Empire of the Dawn while Garth was presumed dead(?); Valyria, princess of Dawn, thirdborn, spirited away and hidden among a tribe of shepherds (for her safety, her mother's doing?)

The easel was covered up with the black curtain before he could read further, but Luwin knew what he had seen – a family tree. The family tree of the last Emperor. And some of the blanks Luwin was left with were already being filled.

Brandon Stark didn't seem to care what Luwin had seen, and the Maester was past believing anything escaped his notice. He wasn't going to draw attention to himself though. Instead, Luwin watched as Brandon Stark returned to what he'd been working on when he first came in, picked up the frame he'd crafted and flicked its edge. It still spun freely.

"Right," Brandon muttered. "Now for the frustrating part."

The Young Lord began to wrap the copper wire around the frame, taking obvious pains to stretch it as tight as he could without overlapping or pulling on it too hard. While he worked, Luwin decided he may as well resume his inspection of the prior designs. Most frames were bigger, and they were all abandoned part-wrapped with the wire broken. Looking more carefully at those, Luwin thought the wire was thicker too. When Brandon finally finished wrapping the frame in what was probably a hundred or more meters of copper wire, he used the thickest, most claw-like pair of scissors Luwin had ever seen to cut off the wrinkled ends of the wires.

To Luwin's surprise, though, Brandon then set the whole thing aside and began working on something else. He gathered up two different strands of copper wire, one glass jar, an exceedingly thin stick of plumbago, and four of the smallest clothing pegs he had ever seen, except made of iron instead of wood. He twinned both wires together to the ends of the one wrapped around the frame he'd just constructed. The other ends he hooked up to the clips, so that each end was connected to one. Then he wrapped the clips themselves next to each other with duck tape and used a chunk of clay to stand them upright on the table. He clamped the small plumbago stick between the clips, forming an H-shape, where the two clips were the sides and the plumbago was the horizontal line in the middle. Finally, Brandon Stark covered the whole thing with the jar, leaving only the wire ends sticking out where they connected to the frame.

He then picked up the copper-wrapped frame again, mounting it on a handle-driven wheel device and began to spin the frame on its axis, steadily at first but soon faster. And faster. And faster still, increasingly so with every second. Luwin watched intently, waiting for… he didn't know what he was waiting for but it was sure to be something spectac-

Brandon Stark growled in frustration, removed the wheel, took a cord from nearby, wrapped it around the end of the metal shaft sticking out of the frame's side, and when it was all coiled around it, yanked on the end as hard as he could. The frame spun so quickly that it blurred with a loud whirring-

What came next astonished Luwin. A ripple went out through the world unseen, not as high as the soul but higher than the highest light seen to mortal eyes. A wave of warmth unfelt. A gust of breath. Eddies in a pool that turned drab fog to colors there were no words for.

Brandon Stark threw his miracle away in disgust.

Maester Luwin stared at the mundane contraption that had somehow affected the very place where spirit and crude matter met like a spell unto itself.

"Another failure, Young Master?"

Luwin flinched. Even though he knew Marwyn was there and had seen him come in, had even heard him speak prior, the sudden words and the casualness of his tone startled him. He couldn't be the only one who'd noticed… whatever that had been, could he?

"You think?" Brandon leaned against the table and rubbed his eyes. "This is getting nowhere."

How could that be nowhere? He put wood, copper, lodestones and a nail together and they went and did magic!

"Son," Lord Rickard asked softly. "What is all this?"

"It's supposed to be the first step to making the telegraph, but as you can see it doesn't work."

As you can see? No, Brandon Stark, Luwin most definitely couldn't see. What the hell was a telegraph?

Marwyn walked over and offered the Young Lord a steaming cup. "Your drink, Young Master."

"Thanks. I need it."

Brandon Stark took a long gulp as the scent finally reached Luwin's nose. Hot wine mulled with cinnamon. The Young Lord made no sign that he noticed Luwin looking, but then: "Go ahead and give Dad and Luwin one too. Martyn too, why not."

Marwyn served Lord Stark, then Luwin and the man outside, giving no hint that he shared Luwin's discomfort at the role reversion, then walked over to inspect the contraption. "There must be some insight to be found in all this."

"Yes," Brandon said dryly. "The wire might not be the right length, the wire might not be the right thickness, the copper might not be the right purity, the graphite might not be thin enough, the graphite might not be thick enough, the spin might not be the right speed, the magnets might be too weak, there might be something in the air. The problem is that even if I do go through the tedium of applying the scientific method to all this one by one, we've hit the current limit on ore purity and extrusion."

"Maybe you need to revise the direction of your approach then," Marwyn mused, turning the copper wire between his fingers. "You say copper would be ideal, but not so thick, not so brittle, not at its current purity, and not your only option, yes?"

"You're saying to switch from blacksmiths to something else," Brandon grunted, passing the empty cup back. Marwyn returned it to the tray. "I considered doing that from the start, but I thought… well, clearly I thought wrong if I've somehow managed to set myself up for an ever bigger waste of time." What was he talking about? "I didn't feel up for vetting a whole bunch of new people. I still don't, but it can't be helped. I'll have to start approaching silversmiths. Let's hope their dreams are boring because I'm not in the mood for negative reinforcement. Might have to go to Silverpine Tower since Varr's been collecting the nimbler hands in preparation for the Harvest Festival. Hother, make a note of…" The Young Lord's voice trailed off awkwardly. "Right, never mind. Marwyn, you make a note of it."

"Already done, Young Master." Marwyn finished dotting his i's and snapped his booklet shut. "It might serve to mention it to Hother regardless. Smithing is one of his better skills and he's all caught up on his jewelcraft now too, as you know."

"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to give him something to think about while he recovers." Brandon snapped his fingers in realisation. "Silver-impregnated wound dressings, they should help with burns, right?"

"Qyburn planned to ask you for a grant on his behalf. I believe Hother's exact words were 'I'll be buggered before I go blue like some pansy.'"

"Oh for fuck's sake, I'm overruling him, be sure to let Qyburn know if I don't get around to it."

"I'd say something about sparing a man's pride but he's literally asking for it."

"That man is always asking for it." Brandon rolled his eyes, pushed away from the table and looked long between his failed contraption, the covered easel that had more papers under the one Luwin had caught a glimpse of, and the Lord Stark that had slowly risen to his feet and watched his son with a strangely intense uncertainty.

"Dad. Are you busy today?"

Lord Rickard watched him. "I'll be done by noon, if you need me."

Luwin rather doubted the man didn't have the same full schedule he had every day. The Maester had been drafting them with his own hands for over a year, he knew how the man worked.

Brandon Stark certainly knew as well, but he didn't call him out on it because he liked to be generous in victory. It was why he enjoyed such loyalty. "If you can, I'd like us to pick up where we left off."

"I see," Lord Rickard paused. "The Godswood then?"

"If you can."

"I'll be there." The man left as quietly as he'd come in.

"Well, that was something." Brandon went behind the nearby divider to change out of his overalls, calling out orders as he did. "Marwyn, we'll be getting a head start on the preparations. Bring the easel. The big one. The whiteboard too, and some charcoal sticks and those rolled up paper canvasses over there. Luwin, I think you should come too. I'll send a raven when the time comes. Bring Martyn."

"Of course, Lord. But what for?"

"We're going to untangle this knot you dropped in my lap. Normally I'd just cut it like a sane person, but on further thought the way of the nitpicker might serve us better for once. Then you're going to help me cast a spell."

"Oh," Luwin said. "Alright?"

"Nothing's alright," Brandon scoffed. "But if I'm right, the world might not be doing as bad as we think."